Review

For some reason, I've recently really been getting into bands that release LPs with lame run times (With Honor, You and I). I guess this trend proves that the stars that glow brightest die out the fastest. The Curtain Falls is an exercise in emo diversity. It seems like every instrument, interlude, and song has its moment dabbling in a different genre. On the first track alone, after a sampling of an old jazz track that reappears throughout the record, we get thrashed around from Gravity Records style dissonances in the guitar, to melodic post-hardcore, and from a pop punk drum beat to a grind guitar and drum pattern. This is all happening on top of a series of tempo/time shifts and a song structure that pretty much never repeats itself. Too much to handle? Certainly not.

You and I doesn't quite meander around genres and moods like The Mars Volta or jar you between them like Off Minor or Thrice, but more shifts properly and fluidly across the song. One guitar will introduce a poppy lead guitar riff on top of an otherwise brutal screamo section to transition to a poppier part. In turn, a screech can come in at the very end of a soft section to signal the appropriate approach of a huge breakdown. The end result is an amorphous blob of eclectic parts that form an amazing CD. I find myself drifting through the CD and not even realizing all that I've absorbed by the end. This unconscious intake of the CD yields a sweet result; often when I pay attention to a specific song I find myself bumping along to these somehow familiar parts, even when they sound completely fresh. This freshness exists almost every time I listen to the album. I feel that this derives not just from the fluidity of the parts but also from the originality of the album. The wide range and scope of the album doesn't cloy in any way and paradoxes often exist in the album. The fast, intense parts just make me happy because of the cool accompanying melody and the slow, brooding parts amp me up for whatever reason.

This LP has that x-factor, that can't quite be described but definitely imprints the songs onto my brain without making them seem stale. The technicality and production aren't as slick as that of similar bands like Hot Cross or The Fall of Troy but the feeling is there. You can hear the errors in the playing easily but it doesn't matter because the emotion trumps the need for deft musicianship. There are faults, but whore cares? This album exists in a special way, and everybody deserves at least one round with it.

Ya, sometimes I don't like it when it chugs but then they always resolve it to something that I prefer, so I don't really have problems with any one song. It's like listening to a diminished 7th chord by itself. Sometimes they sound just disgusting when smashed down. But, when you resolve every note perfectly into a consonnance, it all comes out beautifully. That's the way the bad part of You and I songs work out for me.

Whatever theoretical promise emotional hardcore implies, this is the closest a record has come to fulfilling it. It's an unmatched feat of compositional density, covert tunefullness, and soul. Not schmaltzy soul either, the sort of emotional outpouring that creates a tension between how much the band wants you to feel and how fast you can feel it. This isn't simply a great record in it's genre, it's a great record in the cannon of rock and roll.

i think that every cd listed under emo sucks, due to the fact that, well, emo music is simply a random assortment of wrist cutting, gay looking hair-in-eyes, pussies, putting their pathetic diaries into sad sounding little ditties for 13 year old girls. yes. i am an asshole. yes, i have too much time on my hands...but...........fuck you.